my EE chick has a crooked neck?

[bibliophile birds]

i just noticed tonight that one of my EE chicks seems to have a really crooked neck.

i hadn't noticed before as this chick is rather stand-offish and doesn't volunteer for handling like many of the others. but as i was feeding them tonight i noticed this chick acting strange. at first i genuinely thought it might be choking! it would peck at the feed and then make this weird neck motion, but then it went back to feeding. i then noticed that the feathers on one side of it's neck bulged out when it was swallowing. so i scooped it up for a closed look and felt something very unusual: it's neck felt like it has a bend in it. rather than coming down from it's head towards the front a bit and curving into the body, it seems to come down from the head towards the left side and then into the body. the strange shape make the feathers stick out a little funny.

needless to say, i now feel like a totally terrible chicken mother for not having noticed this sooner. here i've been monitoring feet and crops and feather development and not even noticed this chick has a crooked neck! shame on me.

has anyone else experienced this?

obviously i don't think this one will make it into the breeding stock, but should i leave it be or cull it? i don't like the idea of culling it as long as it's healthy (which it seems to be) but i don't want to drag out a slow death if that's the way it's headed.

 

[Mahonri]

make certain that you watch that chick carefully. Give it sugar water, water w/ liquid vitamins and make sure it is eating.

Our first group of chicks started getting sick (we lost 11 of them) and the first signs of their sickness was the crooked neck. My son hand fed one and saved it.

 

[chixie]

I have a silkie chick(6 weeksold) that is doing this... I am treating her for wryneck...poly visol and vitamin e.... look up wry neck in chickens and you will find more info...

 

[SSS]

If it's a sharpish bend in the neck it's probably broken. you might have to cull it.

 

[bibliophile birds]

thanks for the ideas guys. i don't believe it's wry neck as the crook isn't backwards and the chick shows no signs of difficultly walking and hasn't stopped eating. i'll keep a close eye on it over the next few days though since now i know what to watch out for.

sss-

the bend doesn't seem particularly sharp, but a broken neck seems to fit the bill more than wry neck. i don't think the break could be that bad, maybe more of a fracture or slipped disk. either way, i'm on the alert now.